mnchaserguy

First time I’ve ever seen them actually dance and it happened directly over my head. Can’t believe it. .

I’m having to look overhead and south right now in central Minnesota in order to see them too. Crazy. Never had to do that before. .

Pretty awesome show in central MN. First time I’ve gotten to see them directly overhead and even south of me. .

One other thing to look back at is the amount of low level (0-3km) CAPE. Not sure how high it was on Tuesday but the general rule of thumb here in Minnesota and northern plains is if the 0-3km CAPE is 150 or above the storms usually do well. Overlapping this low level CAPE with a lot of vorticity is how we get a lot of our “surprise” tornado days. It makes sense. Even if the mixed layer is on the marginal side for CAPE, if a lot of it is loaded in the lowest levels, it can still produce some significant storms. The Ashby, MN tornado was a perfect example, although we had the extra benefit of extreme MLCAPE. .

Your last point is exactly why I missed the Osceola EF2 (which turns out was the smallest but strongest of the tors in that area). Saw the couplet to my south for that tor really get going after my second tor had lifted but without a good road option south and it getting close to dark it wasn’t worth risking a drive into Osceola with the couplet heading right for town, even though it may have given me a view of it in hindsight. .

I observed both of my tornadoes while I was on highway 34. I saw the first one when I was a couple miles west of Creston. It touched down at about 7:20. The tornado itself touched down east of Creston, just south of highway 34. The second tornado I saw was from a different storm that had come up from behind the previous tornadic storm and had a nearly identical path as the first tornado I saw. This one touched down at about 7:50 pm. Here is the screenshot I took of the radar as the second tornado I saw was going on. I’ll see if I can explain what happened and maybe it’ll help you figure out why you missed it. I highlighted three different couplets. The top one is the couplet from the tornado that actually went through Creston (near the hospital). I believe this was pretty rain wrapped based on what I saw on radar. The middle couplet is the one that produced the first tornado I saw. I ended up getting behind this storm due to camera malfunction and slow traffic going through Creston. The bottom couplet is the storm that produced the second tornado I saw. I had given up on trying to catch up to the middle couplet and noticed the bottom couplet had really gotten going. Instead of continuing east through Afton on highway 34, I turned around in Afton and headed back west a mile or two to find a clearing in the hills and trees to get a view of the base. Within about minutes of getting a view, the tornado was on the ground. It would have been easy to overlook the storms behind you if you were focused on the original tornadic storms. It probably worked out in my favor that I had to give up on the other storms and allowed me to see what was going on behind me. Hope that makes sense. Definitely a difficult chase with the hills, trees, and bad road network. .

Managed to see two tornadoes in southern IA on Friday between Creston and Afton, IA. Both have been rated EF2. I also came into Osceola right after it was hit by what is the strongest (and also smallest) tornado of the group based on the damage surveys. Also included a screenshot of my location on radar. I was absolutely surrounded by tornado warnings, including being in three different warnings at once at one point. .

I think most chasers (myself included) understand that things need to be taken with a grain of salt at this point. .

This is about as nice of a forecast sounding as you can get. What can go wrong. .

Saturday is finally within range of the NAM and it is throwing out some big parameters across KS/OK. The dry line and warm front both look like good options. As long as things don’t go early, it could be a pretty big day. My biggest concern is storm motion. Forecast soundings showing bunkers right storm speeds at 40+ knots. That’ll make chasing difficult if those are accurate. .

I’ll be coming from Minneapolis on Friday so my plan is to chase the warm front Friday afternoon in Iowa. Now that it’s finally in range on the nam, central/southern IA looks to be where the warm front will set up Friday afternoon. Taken verbatim, the 12 nam shows an MCS developing across central Iowa with a tail end Charlie moving through a pretty good parameter space. That being said, this is only one solution several days out so it’s hard to know exactly what to expect right now. At this point, all I can plan on is leaving Minneapolis by 11:00 am and driving south to try to be in position for the afternoon. Friday could be impacted by convection from the night before, but right now Thursday looks to remain mostly capped. Even with parameters and moisture really ramping up after dark on Thursday night, most models look like they remain dry. I would think this would be a good thing for Friday so we don’t risk mid day convection ruining the atmosphere. Saturday looks like a pretty solid day in the central plains. Dryline with deeper moisture in the warm sector with a strong jet streak overhead should lead to a good set up. Problem I see is some of the best parameters stay way south in southern OK, likely due to some early convection firing farther north. My current plan is to try to make it to KC on Friday night and head south to chase the dryline Saturday afternoon, possibly as far south as southwest OK if I have to. Was hoping to chase Sunday but it looks like the system might be too far east for my liking by Sunday. Could be some potential right up next to the center of the low, similar to what happened in northwest IA last week. That would probably be a really conditional threat if anything. .

It’s a little outside of the geography of this sub but I am planning on chasing Friday and Saturday. Friday in Iowa along the warm front and Saturday farther southwest along the dryline in Kansas or maybe Oklahoma. Been a long time since I’ve done a little multi day chase so I am pretty pumped about this weekend. .

Made the last second decision to play northwest IA thanks to the dry slot cleaning out just enough to get things going. I should have left the house an hour earlier. Missed the tors but still saw a lot of good rotation and motion. I’m really surprised this thing didn’t produce while I was on it. The 0-3km CAPE must’ve been zapped just enough to keep the lowest levels of the atmosphere from being able to finish it off. Oh well. Solid first chase of the season. .

I wouldn’t call it a cap bust. Early precip is screwing up the heating and probably leading to some subsidence as well. Temps don’t rebound out of the 60s behind that initial band. .

I want to chase tomorrow but it looks really messy. An initial band of severe storms comes through Iowa early afternoon and mixes up the environment. Highly doubt anything substantial happens after that initial band comes through, unless you get way down to southeast IA or northern MO, which is out of range for me on a Tuesday. Hoping the 0z CAMs look more promising for the later afternoon. The early band may still produce a couple tors but it’ll be damn near impossible to know where or when to be on it to have a chance seeing anything. .